Is gold a good investment?

With the price of gold going higher and setting new records is it still a good material to invest. Even though the American government has the power to lift the economy up within months, there is no significant sign of the economy rebounding anytime soon hence the rising price of gold and gas. I want to buy gold in hopes of it make me a profit but am still double minded especially because it is so expensive and the price could drop. From my research though, the price of gold has gone up consistently in the past 8-9 years in a row. Will the price of gold go higher? If the price of gold DOES go higher than how much and about how long? What factors determine the price of gold (what effects does the price of gold have)? Thanks for anyone who replies and please serious responses only. Remember best answer is 10 points.

The answer to your question is a resounding no to Gold being a good investment. Is speculation at best and a guaranteed loss at worst. When gold performs best, as in the past very few years, it is during times of worldwide economic and political upheaval. You will find no period of time much over 5 years where gold has put performed the stock market or even bonds. When gold drops it will drop far, fast and with a vengance. The safest way to invest in gold is precious metals stocks as they can be bought and sold at the drop of a hat, lots of liquidity there and those stocks have been making moves lately as well. When those stocks start to move it provides a broader indicator of where the long term performance of that metal will go. The last few years gold has been going all over the place but has generally wound up higher at the end of the yer than the beginning but therre have been some wild rides in the meantime. Your gold purchase should be made with money that you can afford to see some serious losses of but it will never go down to zero. You can study tables to see for what period of time gold has risen, how fast and how fast it has dropped. I think you'll see Gold at $500 an ounce before you see it much over $1,100. I dond't own gold, I own silver coins, junk silver if you will. The profits have been much more and the volatility has been about the same. I don't consider it as an investment either, just a hedge against uncertainty, something we have in spades right now. I'll tell you one thing and that is if you see whoever gets elected this november in the U.S. printing, borrowing and spending as much money as we have the last 8 years, or rather acting like a Democrat in the finest tradition, buy all the precious metals you can and hold them until we wise up as a country and start actually worrying about the money we are spending. If we continue to spend so much more than we take in at the same increasing rate we've been doing and if our economy doesn't pickup our creditors, Chinese, etc. will want their money back and we won't have it. Big time problems there and the price of Gold will reflect it.

If you were short selling, it may still be risky, but there is a lot of balloon growth in gold price. It is likely to see a significant correction some day soon, even if it goes back to its balloon trend for another run up.

Gold is a good investment if you see the global economy going down, I don't think you will see the double growth of the recent past, but I bet it will hit $1,100 soon, look at Bear Stern today. Then you can make 10% short term. I would recommend Canadian gold coins, less political than South African.

gold or diamonds are a good investment
you never lose
as the value improves every year
and the price of gold keeps going up
look at say 10 years ago index in the financial market regarding gold and look at todays prices
that should tell you something

I personally think yes it is a good investment but there is something more important to consider.
In general gold goes up becuse of economic or political problems.
It seems to me you should always have some stashed away just in case things get VERY bad.
You should note that I am talking about using gold as a kind of insurance policy and just as the best insurance policy is the one that never gets used, you should also actually be hopeing to lose money on this one.